Parents shopping for a pre-owned vehicle for their teen will get a head start on the process with Consumer Reports’ comprehensive, safety-conscious recommendations. Besides providing a list of teen-friendly vehicles, the report helps buyers prioritize their needs and offers plenty of practical advice. “Choosing the best used car for a young driver will usually involve compromises among budget, desirable features, and the wants of an image-conscious teen. The best bet is to buy the newest, most reliable model with the most safety equipment you can afford,” it says.

BMW this week celebrates its 100th anniversary, and the Vision Next 100 concept car, to mark the occasion, is indeed “insane,” as concepts go. “If you squint your eyes you can see a car that’s clearly a BMW here – it has the iconic ‘kidney’ grille, for instance – but beyond that, the details are all visions of a distant future,” writes Chris Ziegler. The vehicle’s windshield is an augmented reality display, and the dashboard is embedded with 800 multicolored triangles, a system called Alive Geometry, which communicate with the driver. It also features driving and self-driving modes, and a “Companion” that learns about the driver over time, and can take over routine tasks and offer advice.

“It would be hard to argue that any type of vehicle is more uniquely American than the pickup truck,” writes Jim Travers. This sequence of images and detailed captions traces the history of the vehicle from its simple origins, as the mode of transport relied upon by farmers and traders, to the present, when millions of Americans choose the truck for a variety of reasons, making it America’s best-selling vehicle. It all kicked off with none other than Henry Ford, who created the first factory-built pickup, and coined the term “pickup” too.